


Ad Infernum, Cum Amore

by arienai



Series: Ad Infernum [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: BDSM, Boss get down! That's an enemy gunship, Canon-Typical Mind Control, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Guest Starring: Big Boss's Crippling Untreated PTSD, Heavy Drinking, Love blooming on the battlefield, M/M, Toxic levels of salinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:52:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John and Adam fucked, and one time they didn't.</p>
<p>Remember: this story? It's ours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1964

You were never very good at being alone.

The first time you went without sleep for so long that you started to hallucinate she was with you. It was blisteringly cold; the windswept northern coastline smelled powerfully of ice and salt, stinging your nose and your skin, as the two of you climbed the cliffsides. Up was freedom, down was death under the surging waves.

Four days and a hundred miles: that was when the pounding surf started to call to you. A roar like a voice, tempting you to let go. You knew what it was, that it wasn't real; she'd briefed you on everything that could happen when you pushed your body as far as it could go. But it was enough to distract you, and when you lost your footing, your fingers missed a hold, your chest tight as you slipped past the point of no return--

She grabbed your hand.

"You know your limit now." Her grip was strong as she hauled you to the top, like you imagined a father's could be. But she knelt with you at the edge as you shook, her palm on the back of your hand in what felt like tenderness. "Go to sleep, Jack."

_You have fifteen minutes._

Now, when the hum of insects turns to shrill cries somewhere out in the jungle's murk, her voice comes back to you. The will is strong; the body is weak. Without rest, you'll make mistakes. That is, if you don't collapse on your feet.

Where the ocean was refreshing, the heat here is oppressive, and with the suffocating humidity, even sweat brings no respite. The muddy water that splashes under your boots is tepid and foul. What little light filtered through the leaves above has waned, but you know that the night will be scarcely cooler.

But it will be safer. Sleep is the lowest on a soldier's hierarchy of needs, she taught you. Sleep makes you vulnerable. Infinitely moreso solo. 

You trudge a step before her sharp voice reprimands you; your next footfalls are professional. Quiet. You fingers flex across the grip of your weapons. You are tensed, loose. Ready. You prowl, and it doesn't take you long to find lightning-struck, toppled tree with a hollow. A few streaks of mud across your face and neck to break the lines of your body for anyone who might be searching for you, and you can disappear into its roots. 

It's as secure as it's going to get. You've cleared and cleaned your weapons. You've had enough clean water to sustain you for a few more hours. You've had food... such as it was. The bracingly chill shellfish you pried off the rocks with her were delicious in their rawness; the frog you just ate was a bloody mess of crunchy gristle and tasted like you imagine your boots smell. You've checked over your kit, even if it was more perfunctory than she would have approved of. Nothing's missing or broken. You're clear to sleep.

You grunt getting into position; it's not comfortable. It's rotted but still hard, and you have to evict a snake or two. But the mossy coastal rocks hadn't been comfortable either; you passed out on them in seconds, regardless. 

But she'd been there, watching over you.

You ache. You're in your prime, like she was back then, but you're no longer young. Regaining all the muscle you've lost starving here will be a trial, and it will take much longer now than it did when you were nineteen. Your skin itches with old sweat and filth. Your face throbs around your ruined eye. You don't even want to think about going back to the range.

Maybe she did unmake you, after all.

You hurt in a way you can't describe, because you've never had a lover before. Before her. Time slips by, and you can't sleep, despite the bone-deep exhaustion you feel. You could reach out and talk to them about it, any of them, the voices in your head... No, you can't. You never could. They wouldn't understand. 

The way she saw everything in a room, every detail, and could repeat it back to you an hour later. The next day. A month from then, when you'd forgotten you'd ever been there. In the middle of a fight. The way she could tell that someone was left-handed by the way they walked. How she could cut her chute and roll from twenty feet off the ground; how see could tell what twenty feet _was_ , spinning, at full speed. How she could pull off every trick shot you could name, but she didn't - each round was released in the pause between breaths, the soft exhalation of her perfection.

Deep into your mouth. 

The hard lines of her face eased, and her every movement was powerfully gentle as you rocked together in the night. The tautness of her body embraced you, the hard-won muscles you could feel under your hot hands, even under the softness of her breasts. 

She never mentioned where this was on the hierarchy of needs, but you need it now. You're not sleeping anyway.

You peel away the sweat-soaked fabric covering your half-hard shaft; squeeze, and pull. Try to remember. Try to forget.

Why did she leave? Why would she turn her back on you? It hurts, in a deep, hollow way that doesn't fade. She told you not to trust people, because people change. But the way you feel about her never will.

You're curled over, panting, thinking of her damp hair brushing your shoulder as she rides you, when you hear the faint but unmistakably sharp tone of metal on metal.

 _Christ, kid._ His footfalls are light; he ghostwalks naturally, rolling his steps forward to the balls of his feet. But the clink of those ridiculous spurs gives him away. 

Maybe, if you stay perfectly still, he'll pass you by.

Maybe, if you move quickly enough, you can put a bullet in his eye.

But, if you're being honest with yourself, you don't really want to. For all of her jokes at your expense, you do understand what Eva is trying to tell you about him. "Ocelot." (Though you, as "Naked Snake," can't hold that one against him - you can the meow.) He's enamored of you. For all that he's your enemy, he's impressed. Like you were, of her. That's why he keeps trying to "duel" you or "fight" you, rather than get the drop on you to put you down for good. 

Had you ever been that stupid? Probably. No, you don't want to kill him. He's no older than twenty, probably younger; just a boy, and he'll learn from this. You've had enough killing for one mission. The thought of watching him thrash and bleed and twitch and slowly fade repulses you. Let him chase, let him play. His claws are too short yet to be threatening.

"Hm," he says, as if in contemplation, and with a start you realize that he's much, much closer than you thought he was. He rounds the tree stump, a few feet from your head, spinning his weapon in that casual, pointless way he does that irritated you until you realized that he was doing it to impress you. Now it's endearing. "If I were a snake, where would I hide...?"

That's when you should make your move, but you don't. His boyish admiration won't ease the ache inside of you, but at least you're not alone. "I would be lurking, somewhere in the dark," he tosses one up in the air with a flash of silver in the starlight, gesturing dramatically: "Waiting to strike." 

And that's when he sees you. Misses the catch, fumbling the grip into his other hand awkwardly. 

He catches himself quickly enough and keeps on spinning, though, like a cat that, having fallen off a table, will strut off with its tail held high; didn't happen, nothing to see here. 

"Like what you see?" You joke, offhand, your voice low with lust. It'll only be a few moments until you're soft again, and you can see what he wants. He's a man; he's seen it all before. He drag yourself out to sit on the edge of the trunk, watching him.

His reaction is not what you expected. He's hot-headed and high-strung and he likes to run his mouth; he's silent, now. Almost shy. He's so fair-skinned that you can make out the heat rising to his face, even in the dim jungle. 

He nods.

The way he licks his deep red lips makes the blood surge back down to your cock in a way you can't explain; delusions? Exhaustion? It doesn't matter. She taught you to live in the present. The battlefield is always evolving. "So," you rumble, "What are you going to do about it?"

The words hang in the thick, buzzing air for a time, before he holsters his revolvers decisively and stalks toward you. 

Drops to a crouch at your knees, his gloves creaking as they whisper across your damp thighs. A brief flash of uncertainty when he leans close to your throbbing tip; he's clearly never done this before, and you can tell he thinks the way he brushes his lips slowly over the slick head looks seductive, rather than hesitant. You'd laugh, but even that slight touch makes you shiver. You need this.

His hair's too short to tangle your fingers in, but you grasp the back of his head anyway, coaxing him forward. He opens his mouth and there's a hot breath along your skin before wet tightness closes in around you with a stab of lust to the gut. You exhale.

He bobs his head - you never let him pull too far away - pleasantly enough, though it's clear he doesn't know what to do with his tongue. Tries a few awkward licks before abandoning it to suck at you, eagerly. Each ragged groan you utter spurs him on to try harder, go further, relax his throat--

Catch your sensitive skin with his teeth when he leans too far forward and falls to his knees. 

"Fuck," you hiss, but you would never dream of taking it out on him, not when you're finally succeeding at putting her out of your mind. He's nothing like her, even with your eyes closed. He's unsure where she was certain, delicate where she was powerful, his weight against you slight where hers was heavy, his scent is oil and gunsmoke and fine silk where hers was worn leather and earth and sweat; raw, feminine. 

Damned if he isn't enjoying it, too. He reacts to the sounds you make and the way your breath catches when he swallows your precum makes the corners of his half-lidded eyes turn up in a grin. The way it glistens on his lips is sex itself; you twitch when he pulls his mouth off for a second to catch his breath and a thread of it, mixed with saliva, dangles between your tip and his tongue. 

That's when you see the damp bulge at the front of his own pants. It's only fair, you tell yourself, but a part of you knows you want to, and wouldn't have otherwise: you brace yourself on his shoulder, lean forward, and squeeze his erection roughly. His throat closes around your shaft in surprise, and a shudder runs through your whole body in response. 

"Pretty good," you breathe, only mocking him a little. The tight noises he makes in the back of his own throat make you throb and drip as you free his length and pump it; straightforward enough. No mystery here. Every man likes it his own way but there are a few things every man likes. 

He's pulsing for you; his hand closes over yours, and he sucks you even more heatedly. His gaze meets yours, and there's a ludicrous challenge in it, daring you to let go before he does.

Your breathing grows ragged and his grows heavy, through his nose. Pleasure floods your sore muscles, until there's no pain. No regret. No betrayal. Only here, and now. His heat, his sighs, his soft damp skin. 

Wet seed drips through your fingers a moment before the heady weightlessness builds in the pit of your stomach and you lose yourself inside his mouth.

He looks dazed in the aftermath, but he swallows, and the look he gives you under his pale eyelashes as he pulls away, white beads on his chin, is one that you'll remember for much longer than you ever expected. His uniform is crumpled, his knees are caked in mud, and he's mussed and filthy where you've touched him.

On impulse, you kiss him, grip firm on his scarf--

It's only later, when you wake, tucked safely amongst the roots, that you think you must have dreamed it. You smell so awfully that you can hardly stand to be near your _self_ , and your mouth tastes like old dead frog. What it _means_ that you've dreamt it is best left unexamined; it's morning, and you feel marginally less like walking death. The insects sing as insects do. 

Then the metallic glint of a casing catches your eye in the early light. It's a single round, placed deliberately right-side up beside your head. But, not the .45 cartridge of a Single Action Army.

It's the 9mm round of a Makarov.


	2. 1971

The music in the lounge is smooth and tranquil, yet it does nothing to soothe you. 

Zero called you here to celebrate. To socialize, and renew the bonds between you the way only human contact can. Soft rain falls on the London streets above; the entire private establishment has been cleared out for the six of you. There are no windows where you sit, and no staff: Zero himself has been mixing and serving the drinks from behind an opulent bar. He does so with a skilled elegance, tailored to their individual tastes, that surprises precisely no one present.

Anderson's enjoying a finely crafted lager, while Clark savours a gin and tonic with a slice of lime that, based on her expression and the rare reddening of her cheeks, delights her. They talk shop; family. Adam wants vodka, at first - whether because he truly likes it or doesn't know what else to drink, you couldn't say - but Zero convinces him to try whiskey, and soon he wants a shot from every bottle. What Eva drinks changes over the course of the evening. A rare late harvest Alsace pinot gris to start, which she and Zero fawn over, until they've finished off the bottle together. Then she leans on your arm and has him make her a Manhattan, which she swirls in a way that catches your eye, every time. Until Adam asks her when she's going to try a real drink, and the two of them trade shots of whiskey until Zero cuts them off. A gentleman doesn't make the staff clean vomit out of the carpet.

You are left to chat with Zero. Flawlessly polite, he inquires about your operations with your new American unit. The men you've trained. He compliments your tactics. Offers his own insights from his time with the SAS. His interest and concern seems sincere, for all you've quarreled in the past. It does feel good to be amongst friends, newly reunited with a woman who loves you.

At least, it had. After your fourth glass of straight bourbon and his third martini, the conversation turns from pleasantries to politics. 

"You're becoming quite the hero because of your exploits, Jack." He sounds satisfied. "She would be proud."

You should let it go. He means well. That is, you can choose to tell yourself that he means well. "...Because of my exploits, hm." Your eyes narrow. Proud? She never asked for fame, nor wanted it. 

"Enhancing the perception of them does you credit, not disservice," Zero replies neutrally, but firmly. "Enhancing the prestige of soldiers is an end we can both agree upon, no?"

"Prestige based on perception can be lost as soon as that perception is manipulated. It isn't real power." Material strength, legal protections; those could have prevented her from being discarded like another piece of trash on the battlefield. A spent casing. A good public image could not. Not when they could just as easily counter it with a story of their own: her Russian lover. Abandoning her child. 

Zero takes a long sip that feels like a sigh. "Jack. Perception is _everything_. Even if you had the most powerful weapon in the world, the will to use it is all in your mind. Your mind perceives the world. Who you use that weapon on, whether you use it at all..."

"But if you don't have that weapon in the first place, it doesn't matter _what_ you believe," you retort, and it comes out like a growl that silences the animated conversations around you.

"Hm." Clark toys with her glass. "...I'm sure there's some middle ground," she equivocates, and Anderson nods as if it were wisdom, instead. "You're looking at the same problem from a different perspective," he adds. 

Adam chooses to remain silent, watching your face. 

"Hmph." It's Eva who surprises you. Withdraws from your arm and gestures with her glass, ice rattling. "Empty talk aside," her voice is only slightly slurred, "He's right, Jack." 

You frown deeply, but she's undeterred. "You're the best soldier they have, the best weapon, and they manipulated you easily enough. They shaped exactly what you - what you all - perceived and you acted on it. There will always be powerful men like you. They all grow old and die. Weapons are outpaced by countermeasures, new weapons are developed. But what motivates them? Their use? ...We need a more lasting solution."

"An end to all conflict," Zero intones, and you can tell that she doesn't quite agree, but it's enough that she disagrees with you.

An end to all conflict. No place for soldiers. Everlasting peace. You've heard this before.

But in a world of peace, the first man with the will to fight rules.

Thus, "You want to control the will of every person alive." You spit it like a curse, to the clear discomfort of everyone around you.

"'Control' is not quite... correct," Zero admonishes.

"'Manipulate'," you offer helpfully, voice dripping with disdain.

"Adjust. Align. Encourage. To choose by their own free will." He's not giving ground, and neither are you.

"And what solution do _you_ have, Jack?" Eva laughs. Laughs lightly, though she may as well have slapped you in the face. "That _won't_ end in a war with a mountain of bodies?" 

The uncomfortable silence that follows is broken by the splintering of glass as the one you hold cracks in your grip.

Zero wordlessly takes it out of your hand and pours you another. Tidies up the bar. Clark murmurs that they ought to call it a night and Anderson offers to escort her to her room. Eva brushes the hair out of your face, her fingers trailing over your ear. When your only response is the tightening of your jaw, she sighs and follows them. Zero, too, with a hushed apology, some time later.

You don't blame her for seducing you. What other option did she have? You don't blame her for stealing from you, either. You had your mission, she had hers. She repaid you in full by sparing your life. It cost her dearly, after all. If anything, you owed _her_ , and your mission Hanoi was one you undertook gratefully. Anything for an old friend. An old lover. ...Something to be rekindled, perhaps. Some measure of the peace she gave you in dark times.

This feels like a second betrayal. The rest will follow whoever wins out between you and Zero, but her... Eva has her own mind.

It isn't until you stand up to refill your own glass that you realize that Adam is still there. 

Ocelot, Adamska, Adam. The Boss's own flesh and blood. Was it him Eva evoked when she talked about perception? He'd played them all, even his own handlers, but her especially. How much of everything he'd done, all of his dramatic performances, were an act? To lull them both into thinking he was little more than a precocious child with an undeserved rank; a good shot but easily defeated when it counted. Observant enough to be threatening but not enough to compromise either of you. You'd begun to suspect as much when you spent the night with Eva, at last. Realized why he'd touched her. What he was confirming. But the sheer, breathtaking depth of how badly you both had underestimated him didn't reveal itself until he waltzed up with both halves of the Philosopher's Legacy, the very thing his mother had died for, in hand.

He's aged well. The boyish, almost feminine cast of his features has matured into a kind of beauty only very young men possess, and by his age most have lost it. Still doesn't look like he shaves much, but his hair has grown out to the point that it is clearly civilian. He wears a well-tailored suit in a style that looks out of place in this century, though it matches his boots and bright red gloves. He's filled out some, but not much.

Belatedly you realize that your eyes are walking down the curves and angles of his body. No, you haven't forgotten that night. 

But how much of _that_ was an act? A clumsy yet far less obvious attempt... success... at seduction that pulled all thoughts of killing or seriously harming him out of your mind for good, lowered your guard. Did the CIA teach men how to do that, or did the KGB? Was he even attracted to you? To men?

"Need another drink, John?" He smiles when he notices your gaze has finally fallen on him. Looks sincere and teasing all at once. Probably just another way to get under your skin. Only he's better at it than Eva was; even now. Her touch was pleasant but obvious. Almost cloying, now that he knows how she works. The way he stretches over the bar to fetch a bottle and so doing exposes his still-narrow waist would only tempt a man who was looking for it.

...Or maybe it's just the liquor. 

"You're still here." From your lips it's an accusation rather than a question.

"The party's not over yet," he responds glibly. He's mixing Anderson's lager with a cider he's found for some reason that's utterly beyond you. He slides the resulting glass over to you and there's an irrepressible humour in his pale eyes as you take a sip. "Snakebite."

"It's shit," you grimace, but a smile tugs at the corner of your lips in spite of yourself. He's ridiculous. This is disgusting. And you would know what disgusting tastes like, by now.

You drain the glass.

"Turnabout's fair play." He switches seats, taking Eva's. He's not quite touching you, but you can feel the warmth of his body next to yours.

You frown. This feels pleasant. Genuine. But he's shown his hand, now. How much of this is an act, too? Get you drunk, give you pleasant memories of the evening, smooth things over between you and Zero? He's clever enough, has enough finesse to pull it off, and as much as your body disagrees with your course of action, you won't be played again. "And what do you think, Adam?"

"Hm?" His pleasant expression falters at your tone, but his own remains blithe. "I've enjoyed things that tasted worse, in my time."

"Power, or manipulation." You won't let him slip around it.

He exhales, softly, the humour fading from his expression entirely. His shoulders sag, almost unnoticeably, but she taught you to notice everything about the way an opponent holds himself. "I think it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what you think. Without you, all of this falls apart."

"It matters what you think." It's obvious enough to you, but something about that statement takes him off guard, and this time his surprise seems genuine.

"I think... that they're wrong, John." He turns to you as he says it and rests a hand on your shoulder. "There will never be another man like you."

He's just flattering you. You know it now. Your face darkens and you turn away.

He makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat and grabs your arm, yanking you off your chair in a way that is neither smooth nor seductive, and when you can't recover and must either follow him or fall, you realize that you are very, very drunk indeed.

And that he is not.

You remember, faintly, her telling you that her old, slight Russian lover could out-drink her too, against all physiological logic. You try to extricate yourself from his grasp as he leads you up the stairs and through the hallways but only succeed in making yourself stumble, and he catches you with a grunt of effort. 

When you realize that he's leading you back to his room, you stop fighting it.

Once you're safely inside you get your hands on his waist like you've wanted to do for the better part of an hour. You've never touched him like this before but he's every bit as lean and taut as you thought he would be, and you kiss him roughly as you undress him. This time, you'll compartmentalize. This time, it'll just be sex. You'll be as wary of him in the morning.

He does the same, visibly enthralled by the muscles of your chest as he strips off your jacket, tie, and shirt. Even more enthralled by your thighs; he's pressed up tight against your body and you can feel his cock twitch and rise when he squeezes them. He pulls a bedside chair around with his heel so that it's easier for both of you to discard your pants, underwear, socks, and shoes. 

His scarf comes off last. You pull him into your lap, naked, by it, and untie it while his tongue teases the roof of your mouth. His body hair is blond and sparse; his skin is so pale that you almost can't make out the scars that criss-cross it a number of times that nearly matches your own. He's Spetsnaz. GRU. You've seen how they train. Those marks are a warning. 

That you don't heed, because you want to know what he feels like, inside. You know that other men do this; never out in the open, but you've seen comrades in arms move together in the shadows, and they weren't always - weren't usually - different halves of a whole like you and she were. But you've never done it, and you want to, and the way your hardening shaft against his thighs makes his breath quicken tells you he wants it too.

You try to reach up to pull them apart, but you can't. He's tied your wrists to the back of the chair with his scarf while you were distracted.

You growl with displeasure; you could still topple the both of you, work yourself free. Break the chair. You _knew_ this was a bad idea, you were thinking with your _dick_ again, and in this pit of vipers called the Patriots that's going to get you killed, just like it was your downfall back in--

He backhands you across the face hard enough to bruise. 

It snaps you back to the present, but it doesn't make your cock any softer. Not when his lips have turned crimson and the look in his eyes is even hungrier than before. He stands languidly and moves to the bed, seated directly in front, and above, you. He slides his boots back on, and the way he looks in just those makes your cock _weep_ with need. 

"I told you, John," his voice is deeper than you remember. Much deeper, and the intensity of it makes your toes curl. "Turnabout is fair play."

He lifts one leg casually, sets it in your lap, and presses the heel against your erection. It's sharp, painful, but there the pressure brings some small measure of relief. The dangerous spur between your parted thighs adds an un(?)pleasant thrill; the knowledge that he is in control now. Utterly. Even if you slipped your bonds, he could maim you before you could hurt him. "Huh. This isn't how _I_ remember it," you point out.

"You're right," he grins, and yanks you forward by the hair, face close to his tip. You instinctively pull back, but the pressure on your own cock intensifies in response and you open your mouth to take him in. Bitter. Salty. You can feel him pulse. 

He rewards you with a pleasant press of the flat of his sole every time you go deeper, trailing your tongue along the underside of his shaft. He colours darkly just like the first time as he grows increasingly aroused; his nipples harden and he bites his lip. You could lose yourself in the way he looks at you right now...

But you won't. This feels practiced. He's too good at this. How many other men have been here first? Raikov? Volgin? Zer--

He grinds his heel into your balls so hard it takes your breath away. "Look at _me_ , John." His eyes flash with anger; not the practiced pout and foot-stomping petulance he subjected you and Eva to back in Russia, but something baleful and indignant. 

You know it's genuine, because you've seen that expression before. On her. Whenever you did something that could have gotten you killed for nothing, whenever you let a comrade down. The intensity is the same. Their pale eyes narrow above high cheekbones, their thin mouths taut with disappointment.

You start moving again, because you don't want to see it. That expression. You've failed her. You've failed him, in a way, too. You suck at him tenderly and when he moans he sounds the same as he did back then. You should have found a way out for her. Even if it meant your own death. She would have been able to handle Zero. Eva. She deserved to live out the rest of her years with the child that was stolen from her.

"No," he hisses, and yanks your head away. His tip is dripping and his shaft is coated in your saliva; you have to admire his willpower. The pressure on your own is relentless, and he watches you grimace and writhe as you adjust to it. It's breathtakingly painful, and it snaps you out of your reverie faster than her fists ever did. It, and the sickening accent of pleasure that remains every time he digs, are the only things your mind can handle. Your eyes are watering with it before he eases off.

"Good," he announces, relaxing his grip, too. Strokes your hair. Pushes your shoulders back to that he can shift forward off the bed and straddle you again. He palms your abused cock and inhales sharply as he guides the tip into himself.

It's still throbbing with pain; it feels _incredible_. You're breathless with pleasure. 

You want to plunge into him headlong, thrust until you can't anymore, but he refuses to move. His hands on your shoulders, he hovers with just the tip stretching him open. You move, unconsciously, straining to raise your hips from the chair to go deeper. It's not a movement you're used to and it's tiring after just a few thrusts, but it feels so good you can't stop.

He's in pain. He's shut his eyes to hide it, but he opens them reflexively when you kiss him, and you can see his pupils constrict with it. He's struggling to accommodate you, and the realization that he wasn't - isn't - prepared for this stuns you irrevocably into the present.

He's never done this before.

Your muscles burn with effort but you _smile_ , and all the blood that floods your length leaves you light-headed. You coax him downward with your lips and your gaze and way his part when you're seated deep enough inside him to press into his prostate will stay with you as long as his sweat and come-slicked face in the dim jungle moonlight has. Years. 

He won't let you go deeper, but it's all you need. It doesn't matter if he planned this; it's yours now and he can never take it back. "Adam," you murmur against his neck, low and thick with ecstasy. He's the only one here. The only one who matters. He's yours in a way no one else has been, and he comes for you, just the feel of you, inside him. 

The way he tightens sends you over the edge and you collapse, the mess of him all over your stomach and chest, and you all over his ass and thighs. 

In the morning, you'll be so sore you can barely walk. He'll be so sore he can't sit down. Zero will politely ignore it; Anderson and Clark won't even notice. They'll see the bruise on your face, but they'll assume something happened between you two, that you fought, and made up again, as men do. Something will change between you and Eva when she sees you. Permanently. And not for the better. For Adam's part, he'll stand slightly closer to you when you walk. He'll take the seat next to you when you sit. He'll pay you, just you, social calls and leave an unspoken invitation for you to do the same whenever you please.

But for now he unties you, and for once the past is nowhere to be found in your mind. Something about the tingle of the afterglow mixed with the ache of lingering pain and the warmth of his mouth turns your thoughts for the first time to the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if it's ever made explicit in the English version, but in the Japanese version of TPP's truth records, Big Boss refers to Ocelot as the Boss's son. So, somewhere between 1964 and 1975 (because I don't think he finds out while he's in the coma, man) they both figure this out. I would imagine they know by the time they form the Patriots, in any case. Nevertheless, the thought of fucking his mom's lover is clearly not a boner killer for Ocelot.


	3. 1975

_It's been a while, John._

_Kept you waiting?_

_Breathlessly._

_Figured. I've been busy._

_And how. But you didn't encrypt this channel to tell me about your new blonds. What can I do for you?_

_I'm cycling up for a mission that could make or break us, Adam._

_Mmhm. Am I hosting, or you?_

_I need a challenge._

_You know there's always a party going down with the GRU. Come on over._

_Georgia?_

_Vietnam. Coordinates to follow._

\--04:45 ICT--

There's nothing like a skilled sniper to make you lose track of time.

He or she doesn't just switch positions on the rooftop of the badly shelled compound, they switch floors. You can tell that it's the same one because they pause the same amount of time between sighting and shooting, every time. Flash, breath, pause, fire. The rest have been taken out by the GRU counter-snipers before you got here. Adam's abandoned this one as a waste of effort and sacrificed a few men to charge inside. You can see the flash of their muzzles and hear the crackling echoes of rifles as they clear the hallways.

But you don't have men to spare; you're alone, and the sniper spotted you 200 metres away. 

You've given yourself a deadline to make this harder: you'll capture the embattled emplacement before he does. This was a school, once, and its four buildings form a square that has kept it safe from mortar fire long after the positions around it had collapsed. Inside is an anti-air gun that has been wreaking havoc on the communist advance, and defended by a thick-walled compound invested with marksmen determined to hold out to the last man.

Enter the GRU. They aren't supposed to be here, which means that every single man, woman, and child left alive inside will be dead by dawn.

You weren't expecting this lone holdout, though. Nor to be as distracted as you are by the nostalgic thrill of creeping along under the cover of night, exposed just less than the time it takes them to shoot. Other battles rage in the distance and dye the sky in dusky red and brilliant orange; the snap and crack of small arms fire accented by the screech and shudder of artillery.

You don't realize how close you are to running out of time until you hear the ear-splitting roar of an explosive charge from beyond the wall; he's already done it. He'll have air support in minutes.

You don't miss your chance, though. No sniper could aim well with that kind of distraction. You hurl yourself forward into the courtyard, keeping low. You don't have enough time to cross; you drop prone beside bodies lined up and shot here days ago. 

And wait, cursing internally, as the seconds tick down until this mission becomes impossible. At the very least, not worth the risk. Not the way you wanted to spend the night.

Then you hear controlled breathing, only a few feet away. You move only your eyes. 

A GRU counter-sniper has taken up position next to the wreckage of a statue several yards ahead of you. His face is painted black and he's so still that he could be part of it. He's taking aim at the roof with one eye; the other is on you. If he calls you out, he'll give his own position away, but he smiles at you anyway--

Because the sniper on the roof has spotted you. You can see the flash.

You wait.

Breath.

You plant your fingers and find grip on the stones with your toes.

Pause.

You hurl yourself forward and under the statue.

_Bang._

The GRU sniper topples to the courtyard beside you, shot through the shoulder, with the exit wound a ruin of bone and shredded flesh just below his lungs. He stares up at you with round pale eyes; tries to scream in agony but wheezes and chokes on blood instead. He's bought you a few seconds.

The sniper on the roof will be changing positions now. You're in the clear to move inside. You take it at a run and leap through a broken window, but you needn't have: they waste the next shot silencing the dying Russian.

It's pitch dark inside; you switch to night vision. From here on it's hurried, but conventional. The defenders don't have optics, which turns silence lethal; the GRU work in pairs, though, and keep in good radio contact, which is just the kind of challenge you were looking for. You have to take out both at the same time, and only after they've checked in with their comrades to report a section clear.

Difficult, but not impossible, for you. The GRU are better trained, but the men in your real mission won't be distracted. The only trouble you run into is on the stairs to the second floor; you don't have eyes on both, and they're waiting. It's a choke point, to prevent escape.

You slip outside instead. Careful of all the shattered glass, you jump at the wall, kicking upward and using your momentum to grab the ledge of the second story window. You pull yourself up with your fingers just enough to have a look.

In time to spot one of the defenders at the same moment the Spetsnaz soldier does, and you wait until he pulls the trigger to heave yourself over the edge, close the distance between you, get your arms around his neck and snap it--

\--Turn the body so that it absorbs the return fire, pulling the AK's trigger in a clean burst through the defender's skull--

Hurl it down the stairs into the oncoming soldier, who staggers and can't bring his own rifle to bear before you leap down the flight onto him and throw him into the railing so hard it leaves a bloody smear. He opens his mouth to cry out but you're already sawing through the cartilage in his throat. He dies in seconds, and you drag both bodies down and out of sight.

You can only make out two left on the second floor. They're in the library, faintly lit by a red flare. A marshalling point, or a marker for air support. You pace just outside it, pondering your next move. 

Adam is in there. 

Two of the defenders are with him, unarmed, and one GRU guard. The harsh light defines the hollows of his cheeks sharply; his pale hair - cut military short again - is indistinguishable from his skin. He has his revolver pressed to the temple of one, and though you don't speak the language, you can guess at what he's asking of the other. This was their comms room. If one of them checks in on the radio and tells them they're still holding the position, everyone behind them on the line will hold until it's too late to run from the bombardment to follow.

The one being threatened is in tears, but the other is unmoved. You know Adam; you know when he sees a lost cause, and the sound of his high calibre pistol is lower, louder, and more ominous than the automatic fire around you. He flicks splinters of bone and brain off his gloves and stalks over to the other.

You could leave now. You probably should. Slink away before dawn breaks to a safe distance and call for exfil.

Instead, you watch him gouge out the defender's eye with a knife, slowly, holding him down while he shrieks and begs Adam to kill him. 

Your eyes narrow at movement in the darkness behind him. The long line of a marksman's rifle behind the shelves; you've taken out the patrol on the stairs that was to warn him of the sniper's approach. They'll never get a shot off with that before his guard does, so it doesn't matt--

You scarcely catch sight of the grenade the sniper rolls quietly across the floor between the shelves before your body is in motion, sprinting, hurling yourself through the room and headlong into Adam with just enough force to carry the both of you out of the way, behind another shelf. He's faster than anyone you've ever known, and has his revolver back out and ready at the dark blurred motion of you; he fires, twice, as you both fall.

You cover his exposed face with your body as the pressure wave slams you both into the next shelf. Shrapnel and splinters and charred pages rain onto your back.

The first thing you hear when the ringing fades is his breathing next to your ear. 

You sit back on your heels to look for survivors, but the man Adam maimed was killed in the blast, and he's shot both the sniper and his own guard. Cleanly. Through the eyes.

He reaches up to touch your face, then your hair, urging you down gently with his fingers curled in your bandana. He kisses your brow, then speaks clearly into your ear, so that you can hear him, a whimsical grin on his face in the haunting light.

"Run, John."

Thud. Thud. Thud. It sounds like a helicopter, but it's _enormous_ and much too low. Then its searchlights find you, blindingly. 

There's no time to think. Only act. You have one chance.

You throw yourself behind the shelves as the whir and whine of spooling guns begins, grab the sniper's rifle, and _run_ as the rounds spark and fly at your feet; a torrent of bullets at your silhouette. Back to the stairs, taking them four at a time while your muscles scream in protest, drowned out by the pure, animal need to survive. It can predict your movements there and cut you off; you sprint around to the next stair case while it circles, ducking and diving. All but blind and deaf.

The sniper had a perfect view of the ground and the sky from here, set safely away behind steel exhaust vents. You beat the helicopter to the roof - you had to - and roll behind it with a speed that bruises your shoulders. The gunner doesn't care: his rounds will rip it apart, along with the rest of the roof. What it does buy you is time. Just a few seconds, and an angle, while the metal and concrete around you is blasted to pieces by rounds that would cut you in half.

One shot for the gunner.

One for the pilot.

The second one doesn't kill, but it's enough; he's badly wounded and he can't control the spin he finds himself thrown into, hurtling down toward--

You. 

You run again, inches from the impact, sucked down with the collapsing roof, as rest of the wreckage bounces off the interior walls of the courtyard, smashing and burning and flinging deadly metal blades through stairs and supports. You tuck, roll; everything is instinct now, every movement a heartbeat from being crushed as you fall, your suit shredded, holding your breath for all the ash and dust.

You land on one knee in the courtyard. 

You're wiping your face when you feel a hand on your shoulder. Your conscious mind knows that an enemy would have shot you, but your nerves are so raw with adrenaline that you try to throw him anyway; hard enough to break his neck.

But you're shaking, and he ducks out of it, spinning away. One revolver in hand, aimed at you, while embers from the burning wreckage drift down into the space between.

"You know I won't miss this time, Snake." He takes a step forward, over pieces of the gunner's body, his smile wild and pitiless. The blood smeared across his face glistens like sweat in the firelight. "These won't jam, either."

"I know. You win." You raise your torn, dust-coated palms in mock surrender. "Just think: all you needed all this time was a gunship."

He laughs and closes the distance between you. But he doesn't lower his weapon; and as he looks you up and down, bloody and battered and half-naked, there's a predatory gleam in his eyes. You know what he wants.

You want it too.

He presses the barrel up under your chin as you kiss; there is no one else in the world you would trust like this, but his finger is safely yet menacingly laid beside the trigger and not on it; he coaxes your mouth open slowly, building momentum, your pulse still pounding in your throat. Yes. _Yes._ You want this.

You let him push you to the ground, falling with him. He's on top of you, and he knows just what to squeeze to hurt you and what to stroke to entice you into groaning his name. Anyone else would fumble with all of your straps and buckles, but his hands are clever and certain and skill--

_Boss, who's 'Adamska'?_

With an aggravated grunt, you reach for your throat mic. Sure enough, it's survived the fall, and been knocked off mute. "Kaz." You press a thumb to Adam's lips to halt him. It's not that effective. "I told you I was going dark."

He bites your thumb wickedly while he digs around in his pockets. 

_Snake? I don't speak Russian._

You swear. In English. Then in Russian again, as you feel Adam squeeze the insides of your thighs with newly slicked hands. "Is that your boyfriend?" Adam mouths, grinning.

You nod. "Kaz, this can wait. I'm tr-ngh-" He penetrates you with a finger, and you gasp. 

"He's training," Adam leans down next to your throat and purrs."That sure is a tight ship you're running, 'Boss'."

_Boss? Are you alright? Who is that?_

You grab him by the _neck_ and squeeze. "I'm fine. That's Ocelot."

_Oh, you're in Russia? Sorry, Snake. This can't wait. It's Huey - he's forged an invitation to the inspectors. From you._

He grabs your cock and squeezes _that_ until you drop him. He's choking, but he deserves it. You answer through clenched teeth. "I'm on my way." You hit mute.

"No you're not," Adam breathes, easing himself into you. A shudder runs through him; he licks his lips.

"Chopper's fifteen minutes out." A grunt of preliminary discomfort, but the rest is blunt, thick, heavy, throbbing, insistent. Your body was always your weapon; you adjust to the invasion easily, and fall into his rhythm. Like grappling a stronger opponent, you let him lead while you guide and direct his force where you want it; you mastered it as readily as she did.

He tastes like copper and ash. You breathe into his mouth while his thrusts build in tempo. Starting languidly, slowly, growing insistent with need as he feels yours in the twitching of your shaft against your own stomach. He finds one spot inside you that feels like liquid pleasure pooling inside, sparks behind your eyes. Your head hits the dirt, gaze drifting to the stars above you.

They're hidden by the orange-rimmed clouds, but you do find yourself staring up into the hollow sockets of a child's skull.

Gently swaying in the night breeze, tied from the crossbar of the swings by a rope; better that than face the advance? He moans your name, and deep inside you he feels exquisite, a pleasure so intense you couldn't stop if you wanted to. And you don't. 

You wrap your thighs around Adam and flip him onto his back. Pin his hands behind his head, riding him. Blood from the severed leg of one of the aircrew pools behind his head. Mats in his pale hair, unnoticed. He tilts his head back in ecstasy; he's close, but you draw it out, because you want him. 

You _want_ him. This. This is yours. The spoils of victory; the spoils of war. _You_ are alive.

You come so hard your vision greys at the edges.

He watches your face the whole time.

Seconds later, he slips out of you, spent. Helps you clean up, though you only bother with the obvious. You chuckle softly and show him your watch, and he laughs too: you have ten minutes left. He asks you if you want another round, but he doesn't mean it, and neither do you. You sit together instead, against the still-warm hull of the gunship, his head against your shoulder, your cheek against his hair.

"I liked it longer," you murmur, touching it idly. He doesn't respond, lost in his own thoughts.

"Take me with you," he asks after a time, out of nowhere.

Your brow furrows. He's never even mentioned wanting to join you. You didn't think he'd be pleased to play second to anyone, let alone you. You're too close for that. He's too proud. 

"I'll clean house for you," he adds, and tilts his face up to look at you. "Vet anyone who wants to come in."

He can't be serious. "I think the GRU would miss you, Adam." You push him back gently.

"I've gone MIA before. I'll 'escape' from a prison camp a few months from now," he sounds so endearingly confident you can't help but think of Groznyj Grad, even though, this close, you can see the white in his hair.

"No." You don't even have to think about it. This is not what you want to bring back with you. This is not what you're trying to build. You don't need the friction between him and Kaz, either; Kaz is a good man. A man you could build the future with. You're finally surrounding yourself with those. 

"I need you here," you command, and it's not a lie. This is where Adam belongs.

"Fine," he agrees amicably enough, and kisses you one last time as the helo appears on the horizon of your hearing. "I know you won't need it, but good luck on your mission, John. I'll be waiting."

"Breathlessly." You grin against his mouth.

Shafts of pale white dawn shine through the clouds as you ascend, turning towards home. You watch him as you rise, red scarf whipping in the downthrust; winged by flames in the darkness.

Her son will always have a special place in your heart, but there's no place for him in your heaven. 

The last thing you see of him for the next nine years is him blowing you a kiss.

\--5:07 ICT--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In continuing with a sort of canon compliance: Zero mentions that Kaz knows Ocelot - or has at least heard of him - prior to TPP. It makes sense. Ocelot is no longer working with Zero by '75, and given that the progress of Les Enfants Terribles is something that he has to discover later (not to mention speculate about) it's clear that he has no firsthand knowledge of it. In other words, he left in '72, when Big Boss did. He also says "I've never forgotten you in these nine years" not, you know, these twelve years. It's clear they've continued to associate in the years between. Not that one has to rationalize the canonicity of fanfiction, but it's a rare treat to have a slash pairing you _can_ make canon compliant.


	4. 1984

The first time you wake up, you're alone.

The dark haze and white petals displace you in time, but only for a moment. In your ears still rings the thunderous cacophony of your empire sliding into the sea.

They're dead.

They're all dead.

And you've survived, like you always do. The shockwave batters you and the rent steel crushes your limbs and the flames sear your skin; the smoke smothers you, and the yawning depths of the sea swallow you, washing away the fragments of flesh and blood that coat you. That belong to your brothers in arms.

The beating of your heart is so erratic that you can only breathe in short, pathetic gasps. 

Blackness blessedly follows.

The second time you're not alone. A silver-haired stranger sits beside you, book in hand. 

But if you're alive, you must have been picked up but friends. Allies. A neutral party would have sold you to the highest bidder long ago, and an enemy would have laughed while you drowned. To get this close to you, he must be one of them. He must know.

There's no way Paz survived. You know this in your rational mind, and what's more, you saw-- you _saw_ \-- you blink past white static and focus on breathing. Your tongue is thick, heavy, and raw: "Kaz." He'll know what happened to him. 

"Good to see you, too, John," his voice starts glib, but breaks part way through under the strangling weight of emotion.

It can't be. It can't be.

But when he raises your hand to his lips to kiss your knuckles with his red-gloved fingers, it _is_.

His hair has grown out to his shoulders, and gone completely grey. It's been _years_. It's still hard to focus, but every new line or crease on his face is a damning indictment of just how long you've been gone.

It's too much. You can't breathe. "Adam," you gasp. You need to know before you fade again. "Kaz is..."

"Alive. Well. He recovered quickly." He sets his book down, glancing over his shoulder, probably for medical staff.

The pressure building behind your eyes eases just a little. "What about..."

"He survived, too. But we'll talk about that later." He rises to his feet to adjust the equipment at your side, still holding your hand. "You need to rest."

You would have caught it. Yanked him down by the arm. Told him that you've been asleep too long already. Demanded to know where you are. What happened. To see Kaz. But all you manage is a weak squeeze. "How long."

"Nine years." 

You come crashing down again, spiraling into darkness. His presence is the only thing that keeps you from breaking apart on the surface. Keeps you breathing. "I need you here."

You see him nod before your eyes close again. See him crumple over, a hand to cover his face, his shoulders shaking. He doesn't think you saw it, but you did.

He's there the third time you wake up. And every time after that, until you tell him that he can leave again.

They've kept your muscles active, in the coma. It's not long before you can sit up. Read the reports and ledgers he carries with him. Diamond Dogs. Not what you would have chosen; you feel Kaz's influence in it, and it pleases you, regardless. Adam wants to give you time to recover, but you know that the faster you move, the less likely it is you'll die here. You want to see what they've built. If you were a betting man, you would have put good, hard cash down on a wager that they would never build anything, together. Not willingly. 

But hard times make for strange bedfellows, as they say.

"Not... just yet, John. Not for a good long while," he sighs, low and reluctant.

Then parrots a mouthful of Zero's sick idiocy at you. Your fists clench in the sheets and the only reason you don't hurt him is that you _can't_.

"And what gave you the right to do that, Adam." Your tone the brightly coloured warning of a venomous creature, coiled and ready to strike. "He's one of _my_ men. He decides what he's willing to do for me. Not _Zero_."

He folds his arms, unmoved. "Zero only raised the possibility. _I_ decided to do it."

You feel betrayed in a way you haven't since they took a part of you and used it to create _things_ that you didn't want. Without your knowledge, or consent. Then had the gall to call them your children. You should have known when he told you that Eva was involved in your rescue. That Zero had orchestrated it. They want to turn you into a tool for the Patriots. For Cipher. Again. "Get out. I don't want to see your face."

"No," he replies, and there's nothing you can do to make him.

His shoulders straighten. "Zero's... gone. He isn't Cipher. He didn't do this to you. Eva left years ago. _I_ did this. To save your life."

"I never asked you to," you snap.

"And you never would. You'd never get your hands this dirty. That's not your dream," the cutting edge of his voice and his gaze pierce you. 

"Tell me... what good did your dream do for the hundreds of men you led to their deaths for nothing? Because you play nice with those that follow you, because there are methods you won't use to keep the wolves out from among the herd that follows you so blindly. So secure in the knowledge that you'll protect them. Right, Big Boss?"

You despise him more in that moment than you have any other man alive.

" _John_. Did you protect them?"

You growl and you don't answer because he's _right_. You should have let him in. He should have been there at your side. None of this would have happened... or, it would have, just the same, and Adam would be another broken, charred body floating in the Caribbean, nine years dead. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you had a weapon at your disposal and you refused to use it. Out of principle. And those who were willing got the better of you.

Never again.

Fine. So be it. "It's not me you'll owe for this, Adam," you grate, collecting yourself. "Two things: one, you won't keep him this way forever. He'll die knowing who he was. Two: you'll pay whatever price he wants for this when he does remember."

"All right," he shrugs. "It's your show."

"No it isn't," you state the obvious, and a silence falls between you.

"It will be." 

You dismiss him, and for the next few weeks you learn to walk again. It goes well, and when he comes back to you, the jingling echo of his spurs in the hallway, you lurk behind the door. Grab his wrist as he crosses the threshold and yank him into a chokehold.

At least, you try to. He straight-arms you away, laughing. He's had nine years of training while you've slept, and he's _stronger_ than you now, physically. You'd laugh it off just as he is - it's not as if you could help any of it - but the undeniable, tactile sensation of being overpowered by him makes you feel far more helpless than you expected. Weak. Sick.

But your body is your weapon. And there's no weapon you won't use, anymore. 

You kiss him. Not like you've ever kissed him before; there's nothing insistent or lustful about it. No sign that it's an overture to the release you both crave. It's chaste; affectionate.

He looks confused. Tries to pull away. You lay a hand gently on the back of his head, pulling your foreheads together. 

He surrenders.

You lead him back to your bed and the two of you spent the night together, only touching. Nothing more. His skin against your skin. He snores, now, but only very softly, and before long it lulls you to sleep.

_"Boss..." A multitude of voices calling you from the bottom of the ocean, betrayed. Abandoned. Your fingers lose their purchase on the rocks; you slip, and she catches you._

_No, not her. Him. He has blood on his face in the firelight, and he steps over mangled corpses to close the distance between you. The corpses of your men, the faces of the drowned MSF you failed._

_Only, this time it's his blood. His cheeks are as sunken as his eyes as you stand over him, his body riddled with bullets. Yours. Bleeding internally. But you know how much this will hurt you, now, if you pull that trigger one last time, and in a breathtaking act of cowardice that you tell yourself later would never play out the same in the waking world, your hands stay frozen at your sides._

_You watch him die in abject agony._

_His eyes don't roll skyward or close; they stay locked on yours until the end. "Take me with you," the last thing he slurs before losing focus. Then all you hold is just another corpse; one of thousands you've left behind on the battlefield._

_Another corpse; just blood and bone and entrails, a thing that unravels as you watch, as Paz did, when you saw her explode, showering you, him, and the helicopter with painful pieces of her._

You wake up bathed in sweat, the hammering of your heart so vicious you can't swallow until you reach for him and find him there beside you.

He looks absurdly peaceful in his sleep. Content. Age has not marred his handsome features; only matured them. You're ridiculous for finding a middle-aged man beautiful. But he is.

He wakes when you touch him. Drowsily sits up when he sees the state you're in, but you urge him back down. You wrap your arms around him and bury your face in his shoulder. A moment later, you feel his around you.

When you've calmed you kiss him like a lover again. You'd take him with you, but you can't. You need him elsewhere more. He responds in kind, and the need you feel isn't the immediate, burning heat you've known for him in the past. It's slow and gradual, and it builds. Long minutes before you're hard enough for him to notice. He strokes you, and you return the favour. 

You take your time, exploring his body with your lips, tongue, and fingertips, finding everything that's changed. For his part he waits patiently for you; it's been so long that it's difficult to get started - going so far as to push you back onto the pillows, bend down, and suck on your length until you're ready. Long silver hair brushes your belly.

He lowers himself onto it with practiced ease, now. Slick and tight and distracting; from the lives of everyone here, which are forfeit if Cipher finds you. But they'll prevent them from simply leveling the place - they'll need to see your body or they won't know for certain you've died. This will force them to go floor to floor in search of you instead, buying you time. Adam's idea; he thinks like they do. 

From the good men you'll betray, leaving them in his capable hands. 

"Look at me, John," he murmurs, bringing your focus back to him. The intensity in his eyes; the way he crumpled at your side when you woke; the way the years have aged him hard; the flowers - all harder and harder to ignore. But you have no time for it. That's not what you need him for right now.

He rocks his hips, raising and lowering them only slightly as the dim pleasure slowly builds along your encased shaft. You let him. Until his face flushes and he stiffens. Then you ease him onto his back, on top of him, gauging your thrusts from his reactions and tailoring them to his pleasure, holding him close the whole time. 

Night fades to dawn by the time he arches against your chest one last time, wordlessly clinging to your neck as you enjoy him for a few minutes longer, panting by the time you soften in the wetness you've left inside him.

You're still inside him when he traces your cheekbone with his thumb, under your ruined eye. "I'll give you the words I use to trigger it. You'll decide when he comes out of it," he smiles wryly and his next words stun you, shifting all of the power - all of his trust - back into your hands. 

"And when I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last chapter before severe content warnings come into play. 
> 
> Also, VKaz because I fucking love VKaz.


	5. 198X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning is for real. But you've seen worse, haven't you, Boss?
> 
> You've done worse.

You've always been attracted to him. But every time you reach out, he pulls away.

It's been that way ever since he rode up on a white horse like a dashing romantic hero to save you. You'd barely seen the man in twelve years, yet he spent the long ride to the Seychelles filling you in with dry status updates and even drier intel reports. Your attempts to socialize were rebuffed and turned into impromptu training, rehab, and marksmanship sessions.

He comes alive a little when he shoots, a gleam in his eye and a cocky smile tugging at his lips, but he's a far cry from the skinny kid in the Russian jungle with his trick shots and pistol juggling.

"People change, Boss," is the only explanation he offers.

You're just glad to have an old friend with you.

As time goes on, though, the respectful distance he keeps from you feels increasingly forced. Given the way he'll appear on the landing pad to keep you from making a fool of yourself when you're exhausted or filthy. The way he'll do exactly what you need, before you've realized that you need it yourself. Even if it takes hours, or months. The way he'll answer you on the radio at all hours of the night, from halfway across the world, even if the only thing you wanted to hear was his voice.

Yet when you take a meal up to his office, he's too busy to eat with you. When you try to suggest that the two of you get a drink after a hard training session, he vanishes before you've finished cleaning up. He's impossible to track down on the base unless it's for something mission-specific. Then he'll appear, as if from nowhere, with exactly what you what you were looking for.

But it doesn't take you forever to figure out what's going on. Not with tensions between your subcommanders reaching the stratosphere whenever you're not around. You need to fix this.

DD lays the trap for you: he's hurt his paw, and while the veterinarian section of the medical unit will see to his care, you know that Ocelot will appear to take him there. He wouldn't leave it to anybody else.

Sure enough, you see his silhouette from the helicopter, his silver hair whipping in the wind. It's somehow nostalgic.

_\--Because you've seen his red scarf trailing in the downthrust of a landing helicopter before, in the firelight, standing next to a man whose face is a blank spot in your mind--_

Of course it is. He waits there for you every time you need him.

"Evening, Boss." Ocelot nods to you respectfully, though he neither waits at attention nor salutes. He steps past you and reaches into the helicopter for the dog. "Oh, what happened to you?"

You get the impression that the question was rhetorical but you repeat that he stepped on a sharp piece of shrapnel. Ocelot knows that; he was on comms at the time. That's why he's here. You think you catch him hiding a grin in the dog's fur at your awkwardness. He doesn't stop you when you follow him to the car, though, and you drive to the medical platform in silence, his hand resting on DD's head, idling scratching his ears the whole way. It feels comfortable.

Of course it does. You've known him for twenty years. He's your oldest friend, and you trust him more than any other man alive.

He snatches up the driver's seat on the way back before you can get there. Brakes at the command platform while the engine hums. "This is your stop," he informs you needlessly, but you don't get out.

"It's your stop too," you tell him.

"Oh? There something you need?"

"You're going to have a drink with me," you manage, not looking him in the eye. When he seems nonplussed you add, "In my room."

He offers the artful pretense of mulling it over before he shoots you down. "Sorry, Boss. There's another mission coming through the pipes. I need to clear it before I hand it off to Miller."

You steel yourself. "That wasn't a request."

He lifts an eyebrow and takes your measure before responding, bemused, "Understood," and shuts off the engine.

You release the breath you've been holding the whole time. It took you weeks to work up to this. You were half-convinced he'd just chuckle and drive off. Instead, he follows you with the long, elegant strides you've grown accustomed to seeing as he walks away. Your room isn't anything special - you've insisted on having similar quarters to the rest of your men, partly as a sign of solidarity, partly because you're rarely ever here. You prefer soft grass and starlit desert nights. But you know which room is yours because it's the one Kaz gave you access to with your keycard.

_"As the commander of the base, he should technically have access to every room, aside from private quarters," Ocelot had insisted levelly in the fight they'd pitched over it._

_"He doesn't need access to every room. Do you really want him wandering around in every building? We'd lose him for days."_

_"He's not a child, Miller. What do you think he'd say if he heard you question his competence?"_

_"I'm not 'questioning his competence' - I'm cognizant of the fact that he goes into every room and opens every box and touches every button, even if he needs to scale the side of a building to do it, as are you, and you're not going to wea-- ...You patched him into this channel, didn't you."_

_Ocelot's silence is damning enough before you muster an apology and Kaz lets loose a stream of curses._

You pictured him laughing the whole time, though he cut out before you could get confirmation. He seems amused now, too, and waves you through the door like a gentleman. "After you."

You've rarely been this close to him undistracted. Certainly not alone. His features are sharply handsome, even in the harsh orange back-up lighting, the shadows softening the lines of his face. His scent is gunsmoke and silk, and you breathe it in as you pass. 

You gesture for him to sit at the singular bedside table that passes for functional furniture - the whole of the base is aware by now that your office is the helicopter - and unravel the present you've been waiting to give him for the past score of missions. A bottle of Stolichnaya that you found in the quarters of one of the Soviet officers who had the misfortune of being between you and an interesting blueprint. 

He'd have to find something else to nurse the face-to-ground hangover you gave him.

"Oh?" Ocelot looks intrigued, at least. Which is better than disappointed. "I haven't had vodka in..."

"I thought it was what you usually drank." You're not sure if he's joking, or you've just baselessly stereotyped him.

"No, I usually drink whiskey." But he seems pleased. Wistful. "I haven't had Stolichnaya since... Snake Eater? Probably."

"I remember," you nod. 

"Do you," he smiles with one side of his mouth and motions for the bottle. For a second you think he's going to drink out of it, but he reaches for your shot glasses instead. "Boss. How Russian do you think I am?" 

Then he winks, and takes a swallow right from the bottle anyway. "Pretty Russian." He exhales contentedly, and pours a shot for you. "Not bad. For the record, though, Pyatizvyozdnaya is my favourite."

"Right. I'll remember that. Pa... tee-zee..." Your tongue won't make _any_ of the sounds he just made. "Pyatahvoy... aya?"

He laughs so hard he nearly chokes. "Oh hell, Boss. I'll write it down for you."

You haven't heard him laugh in good, long while. It feels good. Makes you reluctant to continue, but you're the commander, and this is something that needs to be done. Still, you drag your feet. Wait until his cheeks flush like you knew they would. He looks so much younger, happy.

 _\--"_ He _made you happy. During the darkest hour of your young life. With his dramatic quickdraws and boyish obsession. A welcome relief from the exhaustion, the hurt, and all of the things everyone else wanted from you. He only wanted you to notice him."_

Exactly right. You don't want to lose him. Your old friend. He offers you a cigar , which you take gratefully, and light, even though you know that you'll have to air out the room for the rest of the night lest Kaz catch a whiff of the smoke. Your face falls with the gravity of what you have to do, and his turns serious too, noticing. He's always been observant like that.

"Ocelot..." You choose your words carefully. "How long have you been attracted to me?"

He doesn't seem phased. "To you?" He pauses, blowing smoke. "Since Dhekelia. Why do you ask?"

So that was it. In your nine-year absence, his heart had indeed grown fonder. His feelings had changed. "Because it's more than that now, isn't it." You watch his expression, which is carefully guarded, now.

"What makes you say that," he asks quietly. 

"Because I see the way you look at me. When you think I'm not looking. Ocelot..." This isn't any easier than you thought it would be. His downcast eyes whenever you turn away from him. The way he'll almost touch you, but not quite, unlike any of the rest of your men. The melancholic longing when he watches the waves, in the direction from which you appear.

"Do you?" He's wearing that sad, wistful smile now. "Yes. It's more than that."

"...I'm sorry." You don't know what else to say. It's the truth. You don't have to expound on it, either - you can tell that he knows what you mean. Your oldest friend. Your would-be lover. But while he's alluring in a way that tempts you at times and enchants you at others, you feel far more than attraction for someone else. Someone who will let you touch him. Who pours his heart out to you if you so much as ask, even when it's filled bile and venom. Someone you'd protect with every last breath in your body.

"Don't be. You're your own man, Boss. You have your own mind," he drains the last of the bottle to wash away that melancholy. "I have mine. Honestly, Miller is a good--"

The telltale thud and clomp of foot and crutch makes the two of you sit bolt upright, guiltily. You briefly consider tossing the cigar out the window, but Ocelot rolls his eyes at the move. "I'm a good what, Ocelot?" 

You didn't realize Ocelot had locked the door behind you until Kaz presses a few buttons to override it, and shoves it open with his good arm. He absorbs the smoke, the liquor, and Ocelot's presence on your bed with as much grace as you would have expected. "Didn't expect me here?" You can hear the tempest of his fury storming in the distance; you know that within seconds, it will crash over your head. "You'd think the head of our intelligence division could figure out where I spend my nights these days."

"I was just leaving," Ocelot replies amicably, rising to his feet. "Good talk, Boss. Thanks for the cigar."

Kaz blocks his path with the crutch. "No, you two finish up. Tell me: I'm a good _what_?"

Ocelot seems to weigh his options, but not for long. He's a man of action, like you are. He takes a step forward, presses himself close, and grabs the hand holding the crutch. Leans him backwards, a boot behind his heel that leaves him off-balance. If he struggles, or so much as pulls away, he'll topple helplessly to the ground. 

It's gentle, and ruthlessly cruel.

"A good lay, obviously." You're sure he's teasing, but he glides his lips over Kaz's cheek, rooting you to the spot in shock. "You and I got _awfully_ lonely over those nine years, didn't we, Miller?"

Kaz looks ready to spit in his face; Ocelot counters by kissing him on the mouth. Kaz bites him; Ocelot reaches for his belt--

" _Stop_." You don't usually interfere with their fights, but this is too much. "Ocelot, leave." You don't blame him for lashing out. He must be in pain right now. Kaz isn't helping. You stand up with only the slightest sway, collecting your lover before Ocelot takes that as an opening to drop him. Kaz is so angry he's trembling in your arms.

"No," Kaz shakes his head, surprising you both. "Let him stay."

Ocelot tilts his head questioningly, and you do too. 

"How long has it been since the three of us have been in one room together?" Kaz tugs himself free, and drags himself over to the bed to sit. He pats the spot beside him, which you take. 

"Fine. Stay, Ocelot." You shrug helplessly at his sudden change of mood. Ocelot nods, skeptically, and takes a seat at the table.

Kaz wraps his good arm around your shoulders; you respond by squeezing his waist, and he leans into you comfortably. "Months? Years?" Kaz asks. "We used hold meetings, just the three of us."

"Just the two of us, before that." Ocelot swipes the last sip of vodka in your shot glass.

Kaz makes a noncommittal noise. Turns to kiss your stubble, lightly. You're even more surprised; he's never this affectionate, in public. "Now it's just the two of us again, I suppose."

"Well," you admit sheepishly. "Some things have changed." You can't bring Ocelot to private meetings if you want them to... progress, toward the end of the evening. You draw him closer, feeling very warm.

"How long has it been for you, Ocelot?" Kaz draws his hand through your hair; does something else he's never done before. Unties the short tail you wear it in. Breathes in the smell of you, contentedly. 

You're not quite sure what he means. Ocelot seems to know, though, and his face relaxes into an unreadable mask.

"Months? _Years?_ " Kaz coaxes you down for a kiss on the mouth, deep and long, and when you come up for air, he seems almost happy. "Is it ever going to happen again?"

Ocelot's mask cracks just enough for you to glimpse rage as blisteringly white hot as Kaz has ever produced. He knocks the chair over when he stands, turning on his heel and walking away quickly.

"Ocelot? I don't think he dismissed you," Kaz calls after him and it sounds like hate.

You just keep your head down. You'll pick up the pieces amidst the fallout, after the blast.

But Ocelot's still there at the landing pad when you leave for a mission the next morning. Just where you need him to be. He seems calm, eyes on the fiery sunrise, as his scarf whips in the--

_The downthrust of helicopter blades. Beside him stands the man with no face, but their body language is unmistakable._

He turns to look at you, curious, tucking his hair behind his ear. He finds something intriguing in your expression. 

"You're not my lover, are you?" From your lips it's a question, but you know the answer.

"No," he answers tenderly, "I'm not."

He hands you brown paper envelope, sealed, and you can feel the audio tape inside. Nothing out of the ordinary. But where the others have been entitled something direct, like "Transcript of Interrogation of Prisoner Y" or "Report on Area X," this one simply reads "From the Man Who Sold the World."

Then he kisses you.

"Make sure you're alone when you listen to it. Then come find me." You want to ask him why, and what he means, and why _now_ of all times, when you've thrown him away and he's told you there's another man, why he finally crossed the distance between you. But he's already walking away.

You're distracted the whole time. You can't focus. When a ricochet takes you chest, buried a half-inch deep, Kaz asks you what the hell is wrong with you. But you don't have the heart to tell him. It takes you twice as long as it should have, and you have half a mind to stay out in the desert forever. Just... disappear. Find Quiet. Dissolve with her, into the sand.

"Trouble on the home front?" Pequod asks you, and you wonder how obvious you are about everything in your life.

It's the dead of night by the time you return home. You don't feel like waking anyone in the medical section; word of Ocelot's stunt will have spread like wildfire if anyone witnessed it. Which they almost certainly did. You'll have to explain yourself to Kaz; you want a reprieve from their games. So, you head to the lower levels with a few first aid supplies, where you know you won't be disturbed. Lock the door behind you, as much good as that will do. Inside the envelope is a tape with two sides, and a piece of paper with two things written on it: an equation that doesn't add up, and a name. You put the tape into a player.

And you listen. 

"...From here on out, you're Big Boss."

And you _grin_.

The other side is nothing but white noise. 

White noise that shatters the haze of your mind, scattering the broken pieces of your memories, gleaming, into view.

"Kaz," you command, as you stalk toward the door to your moonlit empire. "Access to every lock on Mother Base. Now."

He obeys you. But you never expected otherwise, did you? You're Big Boss. Everything here is yours. You stride past swiftly snapped salutes. Take a jeep through the cold night air to the intel platform, sweeping sideways to stop it. Someone else will park it for you. 

One of his lieutenants tries to tell you that Ocelot's asleep, that he'll meet you in the morning, but you clip him as you brush past. Another tries to stop you on the step; you hurl him to the walkway with bone-crunching force.

He sleeps lightly. Of course he does. He's half awake and standing, undressed, by the time you step through the door. He's long and lean and scarred.

He's _yours_.

You grab him by the hair with your metal arm, the one he can't slip or break, and slam him up against the wall so hard it leaves him breathless. Your eyes lock; _you_ know that he expects you to kill him, here and now.

You lean down next to his ear instead. Whisper the words _he_ gave you, and watch his pale eyes roll back into his head, sagging with their weight. Struggling, suddenly, to make sense of the world around him. 

"Hello, Adam." You _grin_ , and crush your mouth to his.

He kisses you back passionately.

You open his mouth with your tongue while you touch his body with bruising fingers. You wanted this for so long. His flesh; his scent, tinged now ever so faintly with sweat and dread. He doesn't fight you. No, he exhales with need when he feels how hard you are against his stomach. He frees your cock and strokes it wantonly. You push it away. Lift his leg, and bury it in him, dry. As deep as it will go.

He swears in Russian, struggling to adjust, but you start thrusting, fast and hard. His head hits the wall with each and every one.

You don't speak Russian. You never did. 

_You saw him from the helicopter, while he and your Boss embraced. Wearing Russian red. He'd let him kill his own men. Just for practice._

He stood there, while you lay helpless, and he stole and ruined everything you were. Your name. Your past. Your _face_. 

He's confused that you don't understand him, but that's fine. It's easier when he lies to you in another language.

_"You're your own man, Boss. You have your own mind."_

Liar.

You fuck him so hard his teeth snap together, and a trickle of blood from his mouth tells you that he bit his tongue. He still doesn't fight you. You drag him over to the bed, your painful weight on top of him, pinned beneath you, sweating and panting and writhing desperately to take some pleasure out of this. But you won't let him. The pleasure is all yours, this body that you yearned for for so long is yours, and you spill inside him _viciously_.

He's half-hard. Shaking with exertion. Blinking at the shrapnel in your temple like he doesn't understand. 

"John...?" He asks cautiously, extracting himself while you crash back down to earth. He crawls to the head of the bed, wounded, and offers you a cigar.

You take it.

He lights it.

Part of you, the part of you welling up from the depths it had been discarded, crushed under the heel of his spurred boot, is _screaming_ for you to leave here. Now. Go back to Kaz. Care for him. That's what you came here for, isn't it? To heal men broken by war. 

Big Boss doesn't heal, though. He fights. He wins. He takes what's his. You breathe smoke out through your nose, and feel another silent surge of lust when you look at the revolting man in front of you. He's beautiful. Even bruised and bleeding. He looks how he must have looked to _him_ , blood on his face--

Liar.

Murderer.

Torturer.

\--No, that was you. You were there, blind to the carnage around you because he was all you could see. Wearing the colours of an enemy yet utterly devoted to you, body and soul. Ten years younger and stunningly handsome. Yours, all yours, for the taking.

He makes to stand. You lunge forward, grab him by the throat this time. Put him down on his knees and _squeeze_ when you bury yourself to the hilt inside him. It's pleasant, when you do this gently. You've played like this with Kaz. But this isn't play; this is the same grip you use to _kill_ and he chokes and wheezes, finally trying to fight you. But here's an ugly truth: you're stronger than him, now. There's nothing he can do while you pump inside of him however it pleases you, scattering ash and sweat across his back.

He looked down impassively as he _destroyed_ you. While you lay more helpless than he is now. It wasn't the impassioned act of a desperate man who would do anything to protect his lover; he genuinely did not care. He would destroy a thousand of you to get what he wanted. You were nothing to him. Your pain is nothing to him. He's done worse to others.

He disgusts you. But you are Big Boss, and men like him live and die for you.

You release him before he dies, this time. He's unconscious for minutes and you don't stop; he wakes in time to feel you come inside him again. You roll him over to watch his face. Fear. Panic. Betrayal. 

Just a taste of what you felt.

But he's not reaching for his weapons. Because he _loves_ you.

"I'm not leaving until you get yours, Adam," you drop him, and lean back against the pillows. Motion for another cigar, which he provides.

"I don't want you to leave," he rasps. He can barely speak. 

You smoke for a while, while the fragments of your mind go to war, pulling you in every direction. You do know this: part of you still cares for him. The liar. Despite - because - of everything he's done. But you also know that, if it would undo everything he's done, you would kill him with your bare hands.

It won't, though, and when he kisses you, you let him. You kiss him back, telling your own lies with your body, letting him get you hard again with his hands, before you pull him into your lap, spearing him with your length again. You can tell that it hurts, but you let him go at his own pace, watching the ceiling as smoke drifts lazily upward. 

You pump his cock a few times, but he doesn't really need you to. Your body excites him, even now. The feel of you inside him is enough. You listen to his rasping moans, watch his eyes slide closed with ecstasy. 

When he's almost finished, you grip his waist, trapping him. Lean in close to his ear.

Balance the equation _he_ gave you.

His pupils constrict to pin-pricks and his muscles tighten so violently he spasms. He'd kill you now, if he could. But he can't. He's helpless.

You force him over the edge anyway. You hold him there while you stub out your cigar, then flick it out the window.

"I'm not 'John'," you tell him, though he knows that, now. "But I am Big Boss. And you will never lie to me again." 

You shove him off of you and climb back into your clothing. You leave and you don't look back; he's too battered to follow you.

Later the patrols on your intelligence platform will tell you that he stormed down to the practice targets and shot each and every one right between the eyes. They'll tell you that he emptied twelve rounds into the last target, and when he had no ammunition left, kept pulling the trigger until someone talked him down.

But for now you try not to heave the contents of your stomach onto the deck. You won; you had him; you're Big Boss; you want to throw yourself into the ocean. You might have, if Kaz hadn't been there beside you where you'd collapsed outside his door. Tears on your face. His blood on your hands.

"I heard you spent the night with him," Kaz says evenly, taking the measure of you.

"Good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The content warnings only get worse from here, folks. You're on the way down, now.


	6. 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what happens next. You chose this path a long time ago.
> 
> Not that you could ever leave.

You're alone again, waiting for the night.

Marksmen and artillery have a view of the whole valley during the day, from both sides. There is no cover. Only piles of rocks amidst boiling, fetid pools and scorched sand. You lurk amongst the former for the meagre defense it provides against the killing sun. To wind your way out of the shadows when darkness falls; to hunt.

You're alone, but you're not the only one. Sometimes civilians will wait for darkness to fall and try to cross, or leave. They don't realize, as you have, that there is no way out. The armored vehicles have searchlights, infrared; they're either cut down as soon as they're spotted, or lured into approaching the soldiers, who butcher them on the spot.

Which is good for you. There is nothing here: no edible plants or animals, no potable water; no air support, no resupply. No survivable way in or out. Everything you eat, drink, or shoot, you've taken from a corpse.

You're losing track of time. Since--

_"Boss!" Screams; panic; red, churning, rising water._

\--The last time you had clean water. That was a soldier who wandered out of the firelight of a burning pile of bodies to piss, and you cracked his skull open with a rock. Caught him before he fell to prevent the noise of his collapse. Took a nearly full canteen off him before tossing him, unseen, onto that pyre.

You wonder if the North African campaign was ever like this, for her. What she did to survive. You talk to her, sometimes. Sometimes, she answers. 

She tells you to sleep more often. If you don't sleep, you won't be able to think clearly; you need to think clearly to find a way out of here. She's right, but back when you could think, about more than thirst or hunger, the patrols and the lines upon lines of defenses had no openings that you could see. And when exhaustion finally overwhelms you in the suffocating heat of the day, you wake in minutes, panting and gasping and grasping for a hand that isn't there.

Today you've slept a little. The temperature has dropped to just shy of punishing, and when you awaken you see clouds roll in over the sky for the first time since--

_You cut and pulled and fought and thrashed and swallowed salt through your nose but you_ refused _to let go._

\--You arrived here. They're thick and heavy with moisture, a bruised, swollen, purple-black against the blue, and by sunset, it's already dim as night. When the sun sinks behind the horizon, it promises to be pitch dark. You uncoil to prowl the rocks and pools, in search of anything that will sustain you another day.

The change in weather has brought other creatures out of hiding, it seems.

You don't recognize him at first. He's wearing muted colours only; the same as the rocks and the sand. His boots are unadorned and he moves silently on them, unnoticed by anyone save you. His hair is - finally - tied back in a practical way, like female soldiers wear it. When he's close, though, everything else gives him away. The way he holds himself. The way he walks. The slope of his shoulders and the curve of his jaw. So much has changed with age, but none of these. You know them intimately.

You stalk him for a time. You think of calling out to him but find you have no voice. Your tongue and your mind won't form words. But the lure of the fresh water he carries, the smell of his supplies and the smell of _him_ \- freshly showered, clean skin and soap and so very faintly, silk, though he's not wearing any - are intoxicating. They draw you forward.

Thick rain and starless dark have fallen by the time he notices you.

" _John_ ," he hisses in quiet exasperation and relief, turning. It's the only word he says that you understand. "How long... ... ..."

Static.

"...we... only..."

Static, or rain? 

You ignore the garbled mess of language and leap down from the rocks above him. Grab his chin and kiss him, open-mouthed. Your fingers leave muddy, filthy streaks on his face and he recoils from the way you taste and smell, but you press closer, and he relents. His eyes drift closed.

You've been reduced to her hierarchy of needs. This wasn't one of them, but it's one you've watched the other soldiers here indulge, fatally. Close enough to you and you'll kill them both; it's not as if the same thing doesn't await him or her outside the valley if you let them live. 

He tries to pull away. You won't let him. He turns his mouth, whispering in hushed desperation, "...gap... ... ... _minutes_...," but you wrench his head back around.

He punches you in throat.

You react instinctively, reflexively, moving with it like she taught you and compartmentalizing the pain until the danger is gone; you grab his arm and twist it until it pops free from his shoulder socket. His eyes go wide and round with shock, and he admonishes you in Russian. It's even more meaningless to you; the sound of static and sirens. You guide him back to you with his wounded, limp limb and he _pleads_ with you to... something. 

_"BOSS!" Trapped in the cables that keep flight engineers from tumbling to their deaths during maneuvers, gasping, spitting out water, pleading, reaching._

Your vision fades from black to grey and you see that you're breaking his fingers.

He shoots you.

He was always fast, and the decade between you is starting to show: strength, flexibility, endurance, they all grind down with time, but reflexes go first. You barely see him reach for one of his two revolvers and get a hand up before he gets the shot off. Right through your forearm, forcing you to release him.

He scrambles for distance, because it's the only chance he has if you pursue, which you do, gladly. He's fighting you. He's finally fighting you. The last time you fought he was a child, and pretending, at that. You're stronger, but he's faster. You're better trained, and more experienced, but he's younger, and armed. You've been waiting for this. 

He tries calling out to you, once. It gives his position away in the pitch blackness, and you bounce his head off the rock behind him with your fist before he gets another shot off; the ricochet misses you, too. But you have to retreat, because he keeps firing. Then you have to listen for him. His breathing, or his footsteps.

Which grows increasingly difficult with the rain. But you know this place by heart by now, and he's forced to feel his way forward. He can't climb. A sudden flash of light reveals that he's switched to nightvision and, momentarily blinded, you descend while the thunder crashes and wrench them off his head from behind in the struggle that follows. You hurl him to the ground but the soft sand barely winds him, rolling with it, and he shoots you in the thigh to buy himself enough time to escape before you tackle him. It's a glancing graze. It barely bleeds.

Several more of those follow, every time the sky lights up, before you figure out that he's closing one eye and keeping the other open to spot you yet keep from being hamstrung by the sudden dark. It's a trick you can't copy. You abandon the high ground where he can see you. Instead, you track him the same way you did when he arrived: his scent.

The rain dampens them, but fresh blood and freshly fired rounds are unmistakable. He can't hide them. Your approach is painstakingly slow, cautious. So much so that you catch him mouthing words into his throat mic, well beneath the sound of the downpour. This time you go for his weapon first. He only has the one good arm; when you lunge for it and grasp it you're sure that you've won; it takes you aback when he tosses it up in the air and catches it away from you with the other. You're impressed. He must have popped it back into place silently, by himself.

That's fine. The one still on his belt has more rounds in it anyway. He nearly kicks your knee out in the attempt, but you wrest it away from him, and he vanishes amidst the rocks before you can fire.

Truly vanishes. Like the sniper your phantom was so enamoured of, before your son killed him. You pore over every inch of your barren wasteland domain, tracking him. But his bootprints are old. His scent is gone. 

Was he really ever here? Was it another soldier? Was it him who slipped through your fingers, desperate and drowning? You clutch the revolver like a ward against thoughts conjured by the raw, frayed edges of your mind.

You chuckle darkly when you hear the click of a cocking hammer inches from the back of your head. 

He's circled around to stalk _you_. Doused himself in the sulphur pools nearby; indistinguishable from the terrain.

She would be proud, you want to tell him, but you have no words.

You _do_ have the will. You spin around and fire, blind. His only shot is lethal: he takes it, you die. You'd happily die, at his hands. He doesn't, he loses. When your finger squeezes the trigger, you know you've won.

You empty all six rounds. Three scatter harmlessly amongst the rocks and sand.

He staggers backwards several feet before he falls. 

You toss the empty weapon to the earth; he fires the last bullet in his own away from you, at the sky. Blood oozes from his hip; his stomach; just beneath his lungs. It'll take him hours to die. He gasps and reaches for you, black blood bubbling up over his lips. 

You recoil, viscerally, before you remember that you promised yourself you wouldn't. You kneel at his side and pat his kit down for the knife you know he'll be carrying. He draws it, first, and hurls it away from you, into the boiling water. 

I promised myself I wouldn't let you die like this, you want to tell him. 

But you can't break his neck with one arm, and when you try to crush his throat with your boot and your fist, he fights you. He still has most of his strength left, and will until he's bled out. He's pale and cold with sweat; you know from experience how much this hurts. You still outweigh him; you straddle him, and his eyes roll back from the excruciating pain of the weight on his wounds. "Ssh, Adam." 

He won't let you get your forearm up under his chin, either, scratching with blood-wet fingers, reaching for your _eye_ if you lean close enough. You sit back, contemplating the pools of boiling water instead. You could drag him there.

He realizes what you mean to do and shakes his head rapidly, eyes wide. He's stopped trying to speak to you. He stops trying to fight you. Sits up on his elbows and pulls a plastic-sealed package out of one of his pockets and passes it carefully into yours. Then he kisses you, feverishly. 

He tastes like blood and bile. You follow him to the ground. He doesn't fight you, this time.

_You can't save any of them. It's sinking too quickly, and you're the only conscious one who isn't trapped. You won't leave them. The medic is still alive, still struggling, still reaching out for you. But when she sees that you won't leave, won't save yourself, she kicks you out the door with all the strength she has left, and swallows water on purpose._

_On the shore, the landscape drifts from red to grey to black. To static._

Release clears your mind.When you're finished, he's unconscious. The storm has passed but the rain is still falling. 

You're not alone.

You roll off him. Eat his food. Drink his water. Reload his weapons. The hierarchy of needs, in reverse. Your head pounds; you feel like you're waking from a deep sleep, after a night of heavy drinking. You take out his light to see what he gave you.

A map of every enemy position on both sides of the valley; every gun; every patrol, its strength, and known schedule. A route around them. Co-ordinates. A time. Painstakingly detailed yet painfully simple: written so that someone else could easily make sense of it, if need be. 

He didn't want you to miss the window.

You already have, by the timings he has written. But you know this valley inside and out; you have a faster route in mind. You pick him up and carry him over your shoulder. Stoop to fetch the NVGs he brought as you pass. You'll need the darkness for this; he must have waited for the weather.

You slip past the lines like the roiling clouds overhead, though a child could do the same with intel this good, stopping for nothing. His shallow breathing next to your ear keeps the static at bay.

The helicopter is waiting for you when you get there. His notes said they would wait five minutes; you're three minutes and eleven seconds past h-hour, by his watch. You pass him up to the medical team waiting for you, brushing off their attentions for yourself. "No one else made it out of the crash," you inform them brusquely. 

The oxygen mask they cover his mouth with and the blood bags they hang send an uncomfortable chill through you. You distract yourself with a status update from home, but your men notice anyway. "He's stable," the medic tells you. When that doesn't ease your mind, she injects you with something that does.

The rest of the trip back to Zanzibar Land is hazy and dim. The men salute you at the heliport, that much you remember. They seem unsurprised by Adam's condition; if he went himself, it must have seemed like a suicide mission. They're more surprised by yours. But, you're Big Boss, aren't you? 

Your stay in the infirmary is a blur. You remember sitting down on a bed; when you wake you're naked, clean, full of stitches, and informed that you've been asleep for thirty-six hours. 

"Adam," you cough, trying to clear your thirsty, dust-coated throat. 

"...Swift Raptor, sir," the young nurse corrects. You remember her face, vaguely; she was a child from a shelled village you passed through years ago. She still wears her hair in the same braids. "Oh," she stammers, then, "you mean Ocelot? He's been asking for you." 

You take a shower first. Brush your teeth thoroughly, fix your hair, and even wear cologne, by way of apology. All futile gestures for any rational man, but when Adam sees you, his face lights up. He's still wearing the mask, and is affixed to several IV lines, but he's sitting up, slightly. Better than you managed the first time he saw you again in '84. 

"Finished your beauty sleep?" He asks with a grin.

You sigh with relief. And exasperation. "How many times have I told you to carry tranquilizers?"

"Not enough times, apparently," he admits. "Carrying you, though. That would have been a long night."

"Longer than it turned out to be?" You shake your head. Then kiss the top of his, like this was something you could ask him to forgive. A mistake. A quarrel. "You'll be stuck here for weeks, you know."

"Months, actually," he murmurs. This close, you can see how black the wrinkled skin under his eyes is. The greyish cast of his cheeks. "Or so they tell me."

"Stay as long as you need," you tell him, a guilty thrill through your veins at the notion. 

The medical staff can't technically chase you out, as the commander, but they can strongly suggest that you let him rest. They can also have the intel and command staff call you every thirty seconds with matters that require your urgent attention until you leave. Back at HQ you learn that you've been MIA for 23 days. They lost radio contact with you after the crash, and search parties turned up nothing. There was only one direction you could have gone, and as the border war between the two African nations descended into chaos, there was no way they could perform an insertion.

But head of your intelligence division is a man who served on Outer Heaven, and with Diamond Dogs, before that. He found a way to contact Adam. He arrived on day 10, and he'd been planning your rescue ever since. 

"If anybody could do it, he could, I figured," he reports proudly, and he's handsome enough and American enough that you can imagine that he knew Adam rather well.

There are a thousand and one things for you to take care of: documents for your eyes only piled high, reports to read, decisions that could not be delegated for you to make. "You should find another man like Miller," that same captain advises, to which you reply:

"There aren't any," and bury yourself in your duties.

Days pass before you get an urgent call from the medical section informing you that Adam is threatening to shoot someone you don't visit him. "I'm sure he's joking," you tell them, not at all sure.

You'd bring him dinner, but they've told you he can't eat anything solid yet. You'd bring him a drink, but that would go terribly with the opiates. What you can bring him is a cigar, and a pair of red gloves. They probably don't want you to smoke in here, but you don't really give a damn. You'll open a window. 

You light it for him. 

"They showed me your mission plan," you take a seat at his bedside, wondering absently if he'd like flowers. You'd liked them. "That was crazier than jumping out of a WIG." 

"Still more fun than partying with the Patriots," he takes a pull, then hands it back to you. "I wasn't built to spend my life behind a desk, plotting."

"Oh?" You admit to yourself that the cigar was mostly for you. The gloves are for him, though. "I thought that was exactly what you were built for."

He snorts. "You'd be surprised. For a while they thought I'd be a legendary soldier like my mother. Only better. On account of the dick." 

"Really?" You laugh. He's quick like her and moves as easily as she did, but he's always been built like his father. Long and elegant with a high center of gravity. You can't imagine him rucking for scores of miles carrying two hundred pounds or more, like you and she did. "They let you skip too many leg days for that."

"Every day is leg day with you, John," he shakes his head, snickering. "No, it wasn't long before they realized my talents lay... elsewhere." He yawns. "Look. I know you're busy. And I know I need to rest. But next time, bring a book or a movie or something with you, all right?"

You leave him, agreeing to do just that. It's a task you could easily delegate, but you don't. You tell yourself that it's because the medical team has grounded you for the next few weeks to recover, and the op centre doesn't need you to babysit them for routine missions. But your gait is light and quick and you duck out of your office five minutes early, a DVD of _A Fistful of Dollars_ in hand, which you've never seen. 

He knows it by heart, of course. And treats you to better than a director's commentary at times, hushes you at others. You remembered it because Kaz told you once that it was an American remake of a Japanese film; a point Adam contends, but tells you to bring _Yojimbo_ tomorrow night and make up your own mind. You're not sure where to find a foreign film like that, but someone from the R &D division who has posters of robots in her office has it ready to lend. 

It's incredible; you can tell Adam likes it too, even if it doesn't star Clint Eastwood, Toshiro Mifune is about as rugged. By the time you finish the _Dollars_ trilogy, he's still awake by the end of the film that evening.

You take full advantage of it. "Why'd they let a comrade like you watch these?"

"Because I was the spoiled son of a hero," he remarks wryly. "Or so the story goes. Honestly? I think it was the CIA's unsubtle attempt to keep me 'Americanized'. I didn't mind. They were the only entertainment I had."

He goes on to describe his childhood, pulling no punches. The two great powers fought over him. Caretakers, mother and father figures brutally murdered to steal him away for a few years. The Soviets won, or at least thought they did. Taught him to lie, manipulate, hurt others without feeling anything. Starved and isolated him whenever he refused, which he stopped doing, early. Anyone he befriended disappeared. Raised by the KGB, then handed over to the Spetsnaz GRU. You already know how they train, but he was very, very young when he was beaten and frozen and forced to crawl through razor wire. Much younger than you were. All that time, he thought of himself as training to become The Man With No Name, and wouldn't let them break him.

He used his KGB training to protect himself against the worst extremes of the Soviet military. Earned the absolute loyalty of his unit, who quietly dealt with any senior officers interested in more than Adam's obedience. 

"They never trained you to seduce anyone?" That surprises you, a little. Makes you reconsider a few things. "I thought that was part of a spy's MO."

"Yes. _Women_." He shoots you an incredulous look. "Any dreams of turning me into gay honey trap were sadly dashed when I turned out to be interested in men myself."

That doesn't make any sense to you, and you say so.

"So that there's less chance of becoming attached yourself. Most of the best charm agents had more girlfriends than boyfriends, if you follow," he sounds adoring and frustrated all at once. "Wait... wait... are you telling me you thought I _planned_ to catch you jerking off in the jungle?"

"The possibility had crossed my--" you manage before he cuts you off with laughter.

"No. No! The only 'planning' that went into that encounter was a result of spending the past six nights rubbing one out to the thought of you shirtless," then he adds, eyes glittering with humour, "you do know you passed out on me after that, don't you?"

"I fell asleep."

"No, you passed out. Right on top of me. You outweighed me by a good 40 kilos back then, too. I landed on my ass right in the mud. I would've left you there, but if you drowned, who would I have used to distract the Chinese double agent into taking a fake copy?" 

Come to think of it, you don't remember how you got back into the tree, either. But he looks exhausted; you promise to come back the following evening. A mission gone sideways keeps you hours late managing emergency supply drops and overseeing fire support, but when everyone is accounted for, your XO privately reminds you that you have a date tonight, and that he's perfectly capable of running the show from here.

You don't have another film ready, and it's too late to watch one anyhow, but you know he'll have stayed up for you. You bring him a cup of coffee, dredging up memories of a brutal hangover after Hanoi to recall how he takes it. The mood seems different, tonight. You sit together in silence a while, while he sips and you smoke.

"...I tried to save her, you know." You don't have to ask him what he means. "But I couldn't do both."

"Why?" But the answer seems obvious enough. "When did you figure out that she was your mother?" 

"Before I met her," he shrugs. "I had access to all kinds of CIA and KGB files by then. And I was always told that I was the son of some legendary hero, cut out of my mother on the battlefield."

"I heard the same. But I never put the two together, I suppose." Which seems foolish, in retrospect.

"Well, unlike you, John, I'm not a sexist," he chuckles. "I never told her I knew, because... it seemed like the only thing I could give her. Like it would be less painful that way. Her death was part of my mission." 

"You look like her," you smile wistfully, "more when you were younger."

In another lifetime, it's him they send on the Virtuous Mission. Her son by blood, not by training. It's him they try to set up as a hero; try to seduce with an agent catering to his own tastes: someone dark-haired and rugged and American. Who wins his devotion, convinces him to betray his own handlers, into delivering the Legacy right into their hands--

You reel back on that thought before you start to question everything you know.

You hate Zero. You say so.

"Zero got what was coming to him," he mutters, almost sadly, "...just like you and I will one day."

You kiss his temple, and hold his hand until he falls asleep.

By the time you're done with Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, he's on his feet. The first place he asks you to take him is the firing range. It's the first time the two of you are together in public in your new haven, and it seems innocuous enough, but you overhear a young range control technician ask the aging safety officer who Adam is. 

You know him: Raging Elephant's been around since the MSF. He was on leave when it fell. "Who, Ocelot? He's the Boss's boyfriend. Was the head of the intelligence division ages ago." 

'Boyfriend'. Not lover. Not partner. Not old friend. You're grey-haired old men now; surely that's not how they see you. He spins his revolver, winks at you at you while he fires blind, and you wonder. 

Before long you're done with the classics, and you move on to modern films like _Tombstone_ ; things he hasn't seen either. His reviews are either glowing or scathing, nothing in between. Your talks take place on walks, now, his hand on your steady, uninjured arm. He tells you you can ask him anything, and you take him up on it. Things you've always wondered, like how he managed to have a unit so loyal to him if he was willing to write them off for you.

"You always gave me more than enough warning to round up all the KGB and Cipher spies in my ranks. You killing them was a lot more deniable than me doing it would have been." 

"Efficient," you acknowledge. 

"My turn," he stops you, tightening his grip. "Did you know how Venom would react when you gave him my trigger words?" 

"No," you reply honestly, then admit, "in as much as you can't 'know' anything another man will do. I suspected. It's what I would have done."

His face darkens; this an old wound between you, but it still festers, at times. You stand your ground, like you always do. "You took everything away from him. The least you could do was toss him a pity fuck now and then."

"I was under the impression Miller was responsible for the pity fucks," he spits spitefully, but there's something beneath the surface whenever he talks about Kaz. Something that isn't animosity. "This is why clarity from command is so important."

"You can't still be jealous of Kaz, Adam." He was someone you could have loved, in another life. But you made your choice. 

"I'm not. He...," you see him struggling to find the right words, for once. "Miller told me I had it coming. But," he spreads his hands, "he also told me that if Venom pulled that trick again he'd personally feed him to our wolves. He's a hard man to read." 

He's a good man, you think, but you don't say it, for everything it implies. 

"You wouldn't believe what Eva called you when I told her about all that."

"You talk to Eva?" You're far more surprised that he told her about it all; you're sure she called you a brainless, pig-fucking idiot in five different languages. She has before.

"I do work with her," he points out the obvious.

"I was under the impression you two didn't get along."

"Sure. Back when I was young and stupid and thought your dick was a limited resource," he tells you, chagrined at that younger self. "A man gets older and realizes that he needs friends."

A while later he adds, "She still cares about you, you know," though it sounds like something else.

As his recovery progresses you have more options to while away the hours. The experience is a far cry from the base desperation you felt when you were young, liquor-fueled and urgent with only the end in mind. It's different from the unspoken emptiness that accompanied the times he shared your bed a decade ago; your mind elsewhere, his marking the time until you left, unsatisfied. You're both old now. And careful. There's no rush, though your bodies might not let you even if there was. It doesn't matter who takes the lead. If either of you does.

His skin's no longer smooth or taut, but neither is yours. He's memorized the pitted and cratered battlefield that is your body, and he knows his way around it like a veteran of all your private wars.

You know your time together is growing short when he can move around without your assistance. So one night, you take him on a tour of your new empire. The last one, you hope. Though you'll rebuild again if you lose this one, too. You've come too far to stop now. You show him your young recruits, irreparably damaged by the war-zones they came from, though the wounds are the kind only old soldiers like you can see. The hardened mercenaries who train them; gazing into fragments of a mirror, all these pieces of yourself. 

"You really think this is what she'd want?" He asks quietly.

"No," you admit, "but it's what I want."

His laughter echoes down the hall, startling the sentries. "You did it, John. You finally beat Zero."

You take him to the highest point to watch the sunrise, overlooking everything you've built; your entire arsenal, human and otherwise. He takes it in. Impressed, curious. At length, he smiles wistfully, with one side of his mouth. "You know they won't let you keep this."

"Then they can try to take it from me." You've known from the start that this would put you at odds with their plan for the world; you've known since Cipher butchered the MSF that continuing down this path meant war with them. "I'm not my phantom. I'll use my deterrents, if I have to." Venom never would have; they didn't know that, but you did. To him the cost was too great. 

But you, you see the bigger picture. Their war economy is no less brutal than you carving out a space in the world for all their cast offs along the way. Their discarded human casings, the men and women too broken to know any other way. The ones they would conveniently dispose of in proxy conflicts. There's nothing good or noble about what you've done, but you'll fight for it. You'll make anyone who tries to take it from you bleed. 

"Will you," there's no judgement in his voice. "I don't think that would stop them, John. They're sunk into the fabric of world, now."

"Then I'll raze it to the ground. Burn every last inch of it and start over."

He watches your face while you say it, chin on his red-gloved knuckles. "I can't help you with that, here. I need to leave, John. The longer I stay here, the harder my absence will be to explain. You're lucky - they overlook me coming here from time to time, because they know we've been fucking since the 70s."

You're not surprised. You don't want him to go, though. He can tell.

"I mean it. I've already compromised how useful I'll be to you for the next few months, at least. They'll exclude me from top-level operations until I've been vetted again. There's not much I'll be able to tell you," he warns. He's kept you apprised of their schemes for years.

"I can look after myself, Adam." It's hard to regret any of it, now; a means to an end. 

"I know," he smiles in earnest. Takes your hand and kisses your fingers. You catch it and pull him close instead, like you wanted to do the first time you saw him in Dhekelia. Only this time there are no other thoughts on your mind. Just him. Just a fleeting moment of peace.

He lights a cigar for you. "We'll meet again," you say. Your good luck charm.

"Right," he answers.

When he leaves you later that day, it's with a gift: a private frequency, one he'll keep open just for you. It's a huge risk in his situation, but he assures you he can handle it. You believe him because you have no reason not to. 

He abuses it, boyishly. Calls you up in the evenings to complain about the grunt work they have him doing as penance for his disappearing act. Gossips shamelessly about your aging former comrades. Tells you about films you should watch and books you should read. You respond with the minutiae of your life as a commander, because you don't complain and you don't gossip. He seems absurdly interested in it even so. Sometimes he reads to you; you listen just to hear the sound of his voice.

What you don't tell him is that you have no desire to watch anything when he isn't around. The pictures are lifeless, grey; the words are hollow. You don't tell him that food tastes like ash, that your meals are mechanical and designed to prevent muscle loss. Nothing more. You certainly don't tell him that memories of him are the only thing that get you hard anymore. Nubile young women and handsome, athletic young men here would all fuck you. You could buy the most expensive, exotic sex you any man ever wanted. But all you see when you look at them are the half-dressed corpses of raped and butchered civilians that you've walled off in your mind over decades of war.

You don't tell him that you need to be medicated to sleep for more than an hour. Or that the chance of combat is the only reason you get out of your sweat-soaked bed at all.

Or that you lied to him.

You can't look after yourself. You never could. Without him, you would have lost the very thing your mentor died for. Without him, Cipher's agents would have murdered you while you slept; he rebuilt what you lost, so that it was all ready for you when you woke. Without him, you'd have died four years ago.

You explain all this to the thing they created from your body, though. And you _laugh_ like you haven't in _years_ when he tells you he'll just... walk away from it all. He's so young. So pitifully arrogant, like you were. He doesn't see the shackles on him, tightening. There will always be another fight. Another mission. More men who need to die, until one of them finally kills him.

But Eva was right all along; Adam was wrong. You're utterly replaceable. You've grown outdated, and a newer model is here to fight for them in your stead. A new hero. 

You don't want to die, though. You wanted to drag them all down with you. You try to cling to life even as the flames lick, excruciating, along your melting skin. The fire isn't hot enough to suffocate you; it sears your lungs and makes your tears boil before the fusing of the burned lenses blinds you. You still want to _live_. You want to _fight_. Your "son" watches the whole time, and you'd laugh again if you could; he'll see this in his dreams until the day he dies. 

When you collapse you know you've finally lost. Sightless and weak; even the stench of burned flesh is fading. You touch the dial at your throat. "Adam," it's no more than a whisper, but it doesn't need to be.

"John?" He's crying. But so did you, when the woman you loved died.

"Burn it all down." 

He says something more, but you don't hear it. You're too far gone. Death is dragging you into the darkness where you belong. At last. 

You're not afraid. Because you know, someday, he'll join you down here - forever. 

You won't be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious, yes: their fight takes place in a real place, during a real conflict in '99. A GIS of "Danakil Depression" will provide you with some references. Wasn't really that important as far as the story was concerned to get into details, but if you press L1 Ocelot'll read you the Wikipedia entry about it in that devilishly sexy Texan drawl. 
> 
> When I was younger Big Boss sounded almost cartoonishly villainous, and I imagine he still reads that way to a lot of people during MG1-2. But it doesn't take long working with veteran soldiers to hear that their civilian lives "don't feel real" or that they keep going back on tours because it's the only time they "feel alive." Or that once they've gone "into the black" (a term that refers to what you see at a given level of stress) that it's always there, hovering at the edges of their vision. Big Boss has no therapy, no support network. His back is against the wall. And yet, he spends the last few minutes of his life warning Snake about what he's getting himself into.
> 
> Unlike Otacon, though, Ocelot's an equally broken man.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I just finished TPP. I'm late to the party, I know, but I've been an MGS fan since the 90s. Been a Revolver Ocelot fan for that long, and a Bosselot fan since Snake Eater. It's a fandom I've always wanted to write for but never really had any ideas. Well, thank you TPP. Now I've got nothing but ideas. More relationships and character tags will be added as chapters progress. And oh boy will there ever be warnings.


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